In this issue (click to go): On Page One Editorial (Founders' Message) Scheduled Chat Sessions Chat Highlights Review Thread Digest On Page Two Member of the Month Award Featured Clubs New Clubs Club/Member News Software/Technical Review Club Business Announcements

New policy...I get to invent this stuff as I go...we publish the newsletter on the first of the month. That would make this the August issue even though today is September 1. This change puts us closer to our anniversary date of the 27th and allows us (the founders of CFC) to vote for a member of the month with a complete month behind us. It also lets us be a little more accurate in the cut-off points for the message board threads. Of course, there's always going to be some overlap because it's kind of hard to know if it's a thread starting until it is one.

Important things coming up this month include our seasonal housekeeping. We'll be going through Photos, Links, Members, and the Member Club Listing. In Photos, it is a matter of purging the contributions of people no longer member to CFC. You know, they left us their club logo or a picture of themselves and then left us. In Links, it is a matter of making sure that all the links are viable and that no clubsite links are present (you're personal and club homepages and pages of interest were okay, but your clubsites belong on the Member Club Listing). In Members, time to check out the people that never posted to the message board and who may not have a club in foundership (Rule #1 stuff). And in the Member Club Listing, time to do club visitations, to find out if all the clubs listed still exist, still have you as a founder, have been described properly, what's new in your club, and how your club is doing.

The last question there may sound like "Big Brother" watching, but really it is a matter of becoming familair with your club, what it is about and what it's particular problems may be. You can't be a good founder unless you do a little homework on your subject matter. Our subject matter is Yahoo! clubs, specifically your Yahoo! clubs. The better we know your club the better we can help you make your club the best. We just wanted you to know.

Hmmm, but ya know, it might not be a bad idea for you to do a little seasonal housekeeping too. Maybe you want to check out some new club colors for Autumn (or Spring in the southern hemisphere). Maybe you would like to start thinking about football season or back-to-school or Guy Fawkes Day or Halloween or Thanksgiving or ...okay, I admit it, I don't know that many non-US holidays. The point is: it's a good time to clean up, spruce up, and start thinking about ways of waking up sleeping members. It's a thought.

AngelPie_Mouse (aka clubfoundersclub)
[Co-Founder]

Tentative scheduling for our next two chat sessions are:

• Wednesday, September 6 at 10 p.m. EDT (7 p.m. PDT and 3 a.m. Thursday GMT)
• Thursday, September 7 at 4 p.m. EDT (1 p.m. PDT and 9 p.m. GMT)

Topics to be announced (if any).

Coming soon: "How to recruit new members/practices and no-nos!" This chat will not be a lecture but a discussion of the topic.

We had two chat sessions since our last reporting.

1 -- Wednesday, August 23rd at 10 p.m. EDT.
Announced topic: "The Impact of TOC"

Members in attendence: ClubFoundersClub (AngelPie_Mouse), Mistybunny, Lo_Forde, damsel_in_ddk, Garrit_Sherova, multicat01, kitt3n13, Secretive__, ArrylT, NOWAYWINS.

Discussion was lively concerning some of the changes we have seen and can expect to see coming out of The Official Club and the character of that club. You can see a transcript of the entire chat session at: http://www.oocities.org/clubfoundersclub/theofficialclub/chat-08232000-part1.html.

The main focus of the meeting was to determine what, if any, points of our wishlist we needed to add, redefine, or resubmit. All were in general agreement that Customer Care and the user interfaces to technical assistance, help, and system status needed a lot of improvement (see our subsequent report Focus on Item #10 below).

2 -- Thursday, August 24th at 4:00 p.m. EST.
Announced topic: "The Impact of TOC"

Members in attendence: ClubFoundersClub (AngelPie_Mouse), Valerie_008, dallen2558y, drjae7, mmc_1_uk.

Lamentably, this chat session was poorly attended. Scheduled during the late afternoon EDT, it was hoped that it would be attended by many of our European and UK members as the hour was 9:00 p.m. GMT. However, those who did attend asked a great many questions about changes that are expected to take place in Yahoo! clubs over the next six to eight months. They agreed, too, that we need to reintroduce the concepts in our Wishlist Item #10.

Focus on Item #10

The following document was drafted for presentation on the TOC message board. It was posted to our message board Thursday for amendments and changes and became post #2942 and #2943 on the TOC message board on Monday, August 28, 2000.

Original Question: We wish for REAL PEOPLE to hear real complaints and ideas to help improve the clubs. Possibly a voluntary peer chat of community leaders from Yahoo! clubs with input to the programming staff.

Your Answer Was: This is what the Official Club is for. Believe it or not, i'm a "real" person. And i'm listening to your complaints and suggestions for Yahoo! Clubs. =0)

You'll pardon us for point this out, but you are one person able to affect change in one department. Additionally, the focus of this club may be too narrow to address all our concerns. And finally, this current avenue of communication is just that "current;" you've offered no indication concerning the continuing access for this line of input. While we have you, however, let us address this particularly thorny question.

It should be becoming abundantly clear that dealing with the various Customer Care departments are a cause of frustration and dissatisfaction for many users of the Yahoo! products, not just in clubs, but across the entire system. It should, also, be becoming more apparent that the causes of that frustration have to do with:

1. a lack of responsiveness and/or a lack of acknowledgement that the complaint was received;
2. inappropriate determination of the seriousness and/or nature of the complaint;
3. failure to see that a single issue complaint may indicate a system-wide difficulty--that is: the problem is usually attributed to user error rather than system error;
4. slowness of response, if any;
5. difficulty in finding the appropriate Customer Care department to communicate with;
6. and, a sense that Yahoo! just plain doesn't care.

I realize that Customer Care is not your department, that you may have very little input concerning how it is run and how it services customers. However, in the coming months, as the merger with eGroups proceeds, the level of complexity concerning features and customization may affect more than clubs, may cause difficulties in other systems in the Yahoo! family of services. We, therefore, wish to revisit this issue with some added points of consideration.

Proposal One: We suggest you invite other Yahoo! administrators to visit The Official Club, open the forum to include general questions concerning all Yahoo! products and services. Perhaps, you might invite administrators from eGroup clubs as well to learn first hand both the difficulties and the solutions users can provide if they but listen.

Proposal Two: We ask that you include a system page for the reporting of known system wide difficulties and maintenance down times. Such a page might ease the tension and cut down on complaints if users were aware that you know a problem exists and are working to correct it. A little truth often sooths ruffled feathers. [This point addressed subsequent to our drafting of this proposal.]

Proposal Three: A help link in the Admin Tools/Change Settings that could offer more information and more technical clues, in particular, once customization is added.

Proposal Four: A more comprehensive technical guide on customizing features that currently exist such as News and Calendars rather than the general statements currently provided.

Proposal Five: Customer Care

1. immediate acknowledgement that a message has been received with some notation as to wait time for reply, if the problem is not immediately solvable and/or an acknowledgement that it is a known problem currently being addressed and not specific to user error.
2. a chat room set up so that problems and solutions could be discussed 24/7. We are not talking about the focus of TOC, but all Yahoo! problems including Geocities and Yahoo! Mail.
3. a more upfront point of access for feedback.

We originally proposed a community leader program such as that which used to exist in Geocities. We know that you are more than familiar with this program, and we still believe this to be a good idea.

Finally, please offer some indication whether this club--The Official Club--is meant to exist for the entire of the year as you begin making changes, is only to continue until such time as you have gathered sufficient information to satisfy your own curiosity, or will continue indefinitely.

Reply from clubsproducer on each of these points may be characterized as non-responsive. That is: he either did not understand what we were proposing or did not want to understand. However, many of the TOC members who read his replies have begun to respond favorably or in the form of additional inquiry and interest such that we may wish to redraft on several key points and resubmit.

The term "thread" comes from the days of EBBs and Usenet/Newsnet. It refers to a series of posts, which may or may not be on topic but begin with the same subject heading. "Re:" on our message board can either be taken as "regarding" or "replying to," for example. Pointing to the beginning of a thread, you can sometimes gleen important bits of discussion pro and con on an issue, allowing you to make a more informed decision. We use the term a little more loosely in Yahoo! clubs, where a response can often be as much off topic as on.

The main concern of this digest is to point to beginnings of threads or significant entries concerning them or important postings that you might want to visit again. We do not bring you the entire post--a complete repost would take far too much space. However, we do offer the entry number, the subject line, name of member posting, date, some overview of the content, and a list of related posts (if any) over a 30 day period (+/-) in the listing below.

Posts to the Message Board 08/09/2000 - 08/31/2000

• 2179 -- I hate it when I have too many windows -- Secretive__ -- 8/9/00 7:15 am
  Unlist or Not to Unlist


• 2207 -- Re: animations in photo album -- clubfoundersclub -- 8/11/00 1:44 am
  Animation Upload Problems


• 2209 -- Re: Wish list -- clubfoundersclub -- 8/11/00 10:11 am
  TOC -- Unlist


• 2216 -- Re: OMG.... --clubfoundersclub -- 8/11/00 5:49 pm
  Minor Surgery


• 2217 -- I'm here again -- damsel_in_ddk -- 8/11/00 7:33 pm
  Order of Clubs --request


• 2222 -- University clipart, gifs, etc... -- blsrfhs -- 8/11/00 11:38 pm
  University Clipart request


• 2225 -- Links? -- magoo_ns -- 8/12/00 10:21 am
  Links/Networking


• 2230 -- Hot News! -- clubfoundersclub -- 8/12/00 11:30 pm
  Newsletter Review


• 2247 -- Valerie008 Hacked! -- clubfoundersclub -- 8/14/00 6:23 am
  Valerie008 Hacked


• 2249 -- Warren Answers (1) -- clubfoundersclub -- 8/14/00 6:31 am
  TOC -- Answers


• 2254 -- JUST A POP IN TO SAY HI -- krismcewan -- 8/14/00 9:34 am
  spruce up my club image


• 2263 -- I have a war starting...help! -- damsel_in_ddk -- 8/14/00 8:08 pm
  CyberStalking / dealing with troublesome member -- 2276, 2278


• 2267 -- Firewalls -- blsrfhs -- 8/14/00 10:08 pm
  Firewalls 2283, 2284, 2286, 2288-2291


• 2270 -- I"m Back! -- Mistybunny -- 8/14/00 10:40 pm
  Mistybunny returns from vacation


• 2272 -- Our Wishlist Read and Answered (1)-- clubfoundersclub -- 8/15/00 6:28 pm
  TOC -- Wishlist answered


• 2282 -- HELP! PLEASE!!! -- kitt3n13 -- 8/16/00 10:18 pm
  glitches


• 2288 -- On the Job! -- clubfoundersclub -- 8/17/00 12:37 pm
  IP Blocking


• 2297 -- Email Option -- lulabelle16 -- 8/17/00 9:23 pm
  Email from the message board


• 2302 -- IMPORTANT!!! PLEASE READ!!!-- cinnamon22_1999 -- 8/17/00 11:18 pm
  Virus Warning


• 2303 -- A question for Warren Angel? -- Lo_Forde -- 8/17/00 11:22 pm
  Banned from eGroups


• 2307 -- Re: TOC Chat Session Transcript on File -- clubfoundersclub -- 8/18/00 2:16 am
  How to make a transcript


• 2312 -- CHAT DATE SET -- Mistybunny -- 8/18/00 12:37 pm
  August 23rd 9 p.m. EDT Chat Schedule


• 2325 -- Proposed 'Customization' With HTML -- Secretive__ -- 8/19/00 6:19 pm
  Customization


• 2328 -- Angel...did anyone ask Warren -- damsel_in_ddk -- 8/20/00 3:23 pm
  Unlist Club


• 2330 -- Re: Angel...did anyone ask Warren -- damsel_in_ddk -- 8/20/00 10:26 pm
  DDK Going Off Yahoo!


• 2331 -- I have a question :) -- alska_du -- 8/20/00 11:03 pm
  Documents in News


• 2345 -- Hi all-- mmc_1_uk -- 8/23/00 1:08 pm
  Backgrounds


• 2360 -- Draft Proposal -- clubfoundersclub -- 8/24/00 8:28 pm
  Customer Care Proposal


• 2361 -- Join My Club???? -- clubfoundersclub -- 8/24/00 9:12 pm
  eGroups Club Founders' Club


• 2373 -- Anyone want their profile color changed -- cinnamon22_1999 -- 8/26/00 10:09 pm
  Profile Colors and Background


• 2381 -- Re: Links? -- clubfoundersclub -- 8/28/00 3:40 pm
  Networking with other clubs


• 2393 -- CFC Club Rule #1 -- clubfoundersclub -- 8/29/00 12:45 pm
  Cleaning the Member roles


• 2396 -- New Beta Messanger -- Mistybunny -- 8/29/00 7:18 pm
  New version of Yahoo! Messenger Announced


• 2406 -- Item #10 vs TOC -- Lo_Forde -- 8/30/00 8:56 pm
  They didn't get the point of the message.

Some Important URLs

• The Official Club Homepage
  Lists answered questions from the TOC message board by subject/topic. http://www.wins.ch/valerie/yahooclubs/
• Change Profile Colors -- Two (2) sites
  • Club Woohoo Homepage
    http://www.oocities.org/woohoo1345/EditMembers/index.htm
  
  
  • Club Masterz Homepage
    http://www.oocities.org/clubmasterz/

• Test your security
  Firewall protection site tests computer security against access from others. https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
• Zone Alarm
  Zonelab's product (ZoneAlarm) Firewall Protection http://zonelabs.com/
• Yahoo! Messenger Beta Test
  http://messenger.yahoo.com/messenger/download/beta/index.html
• Yahoo! Abuse
  Need to report TOS or other abuse of club system, write: clubs-abuse@yahoo-inc.com

Help Wanted: We're looking for a noble soul who will take the time and trouble to locate the beginning of threads of discussion on a continuing basis over a thirty day period and record them and then send the report our way--sort of a message board reporter. If you would like to do this job, if you're already doing it for yourself and are willing to share, please contact AngelPie_Mouse@Yahoo.Com. We'll give you the by-line to this regular feature of the newsletter.

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